Self-Sufficiency, crafts, and homesteading ... with an adventurous spirit

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Sunday, September 15, 2013

Progress! The walls go up.

So you may notice the long lapse of time in between my last post and this. Life has a way of throwing a kink in your plans ... I had wanted to finish the Turtle by August. Well, we actually didn't get any work done on it over the summer. Why? Because I'm pregnant! Construction just doesn't sound very fun when you're puking and a simple run to the grocery store leaves you whimpering for a nap. But I'm 4.5 months pregnant now and past all the first trimester tribulations and Austin has a few weeks before the citrus picking begins so we're going at it full swing. Now my goal is to finish this thing up by the time Baby PJ comes in January!

You may have noticed the change in venue. We no longer have the beautiful lake as our backdrop but we also don't have to drive 2 hours to the build site anymore ... now it is just 5 minutes down the road!

This week Austin worked on framing the walls in all by himself. He did an amazing job! I felt bad telling him there were a few placement problems. But we'll just work around them. (One window is very low and another is in the wrong spot on the wall, blocking where I was going to place a small built-in flip-out table.) Overall, he did a fantastic job and if I'd had to do it on my own, I'd probably still be working on the first wall section and it would look like a toddler was playing with Lincoln Logs.

Me helping .... notice the baby bump!!

Here's the progress from this week:

While in Virginia this summer, we found a beat up tiny door for sale at a boutique that does upcycling. The shop owner hadn't done anything to the door yet. It came from a house in Nelson county, VA ... close to where I grew up. The house was from the 1890s but not sure when the door was from. The glass is definitely old glass (wavy from gravity settling)

Step 1: remove the hardware that had fused onto the door. Seriously. I didn't know rust could be so strong. Step 2: sand it down and try not to breathe in what very easily could have been lead paint Step 3: Realize the water damage on the bottom is beyond repair and without much forethought, bash it in (notice the hole in the middle panel....) I'm hoping Blake can fix that...